Customer Reviews

Naamah's Curse

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When Jacqueline Carey released "Kushiel's Scion," the first of the Imriel trilogy, I admit to being a little worried. I wasn't sure she could pull off the shift away from Phedre no Delaunay de Montreve, the inimitable and incomparable heroine of the first trilogy of the Kushiel's Legacy series. Well, I was wrong, and Imriel's trilogy turned out to be brilliant. Then she started a third trilogy, and once again I was apprehensive. After "Naamah's Kiss," I wasn't entirely reassured, but I still held onto hope for Moirin's story.

After "Naamah's Curse," that hope is crushed.

I can't put my finger on the exact moment when I realized that everything had gone horribly, horribly wrong, but I do know that every time I picked up this book, the spark of anticipation was weaker, and every time I set it down the disappointment was stronger. I kept waiting for it to pull me in, to entice me, seduce me, to just make me care about these characters. It never did.

By far the greatest sin in "Naamah's Curse", greater than the ridiculous plot contrivances and deus ex machinas, greater than the senseless bouncing around from location to location, greater than the little editorial errors that signal a rush to print, is that the characters here are unbelievable, flat, and one-dimensional. Now, I was never a fan of Bao - my last review described him as a poor man's Joscelin. Well, after this book, I take that back - it's offensive to both Joscelin and poor men. The various minor characters are your basic stock archetypes - the evil religious fanatic, the wide-eyed naïf, the enlightened ruler.

And Moirin? Moirin, who could have been the most unique and fascinating D'Angeline protagonist to date? Moirin, alas, has become the most dreaded and disappointing character of all: the Mary Sue. The girl raised in isolation in the wild who is suddenly an expert on haggling, languages, and trade. The girl whose sexual innocence was so endearing who has suddenly turned into a worldly version of the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold. The girl who is beautiful and smart and resourceful and popular and strong and has magic powers and whom everyone - except the reader - seems to adore. Gag me.

What about the plot? Well, the strongest section of the book is set in Vralia, which when last we left it had begun the transition to martial Yeshuite power. In the intervening centuries, we are told that a schism has arisen between the followers of a gentler faith, led by Rebbe Avraham ben David and influenced by the martyrdom of the Maghuin Donne shapeshifter Berlik, and a harsher, proselytizing creed obsessed with rooting out sin and purging the world of witchcraft and heathenism. Now, my view has always been that in Carey's alternate history, the two points of departure which had the greatest effect on creating a better world than ours were, respectively, the presence of Elua and the absence of St. Paul. In Pyotr, the Patriarch of Riva, Carey has given us her universe's St. Paul, Augustine of Hippo, and the Spanish Inquisition (bet you didn't expect that!) all in one. He manages to get his hands on Moirin, and, well, you can imagine. This is the only part of "Naamah's Curse" which had any sense of historical relevancy, moral quandary, personal culpability, or any suggestion at all that a major character might be in very real danger. Parts of it were painful to read and had me really worried for Moirin - in many ways, it was like the Darsanga episode in "Kushiel's Avatar."

Sadly, we are gone far too soon from Vralia as Moirin sets out - again - to find Bao, this time across the Himalayas and into Bhodistan. Which development, rather than filling me with awe at her determination and the power of their true love, merely left me shaking my head and sighing "Honey, I hate to break it to you, but Bao is Just Not That Into You." Has any Carey pairing resulted in so little chemistry as these two? I have more enthusiastic reunions with my cat after a day at work than Moirin and Bao can manage after months apart. Seriously, I would rather have seen Phedre hook up with Barquiel L'Envers than watch Moirin follow Bao around for one more minute. Imriel and Claudia Fulvia made a better couple than these two. Moirin, DTMFA.

And the sex? Well, it turns out Lady Gaga had it right after all: "Baby when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun." The eroticism here is distinctly of the tame Harlequin variety, with plenty of heaving and throbbing but none of the originality or naughty playfulness of either Phedre or Imriel's amorous encounters. Moirin seems to view sex as a fun pastime - which is, of course, perfectly fine, but it lacks, shall we say, any poetry. Sex scenes in the previous books were always either hot, emotionally charged, or (best of all) both. Sex scenes in this book are, well, predictable. Vanilla. And the relationships involved are strictly of the friends-with-benefits variety, which in real life is all well and good, but who wants to read about what amounts to a series of pity-lays?

In short, "Naamah's Curse" was a horrible disappointment. I hate writing these reviews of Jacqueline Carey books, I really do. I thought she had gotten all her hack writing out with "Banewreaker," but it appears there was still some left. This is hideously depressing to me. I simply can't understand how this book went so wrong, and I honestly don't see how the series is going to turn around again. "Curse," indeed.

Like a few other reviewers, I had high hopes for this book. Moirin, while not my favorite narrator, felt like she had some spark to her, some reason to struggle, to fight, to grow, and to be alive. Unfortunately, the revival of Bao at the end of the first book meant the death of Moirin in the second.

I understand, or at least I like to think I understand, what Carey was going for. She'd already created a ground-breaking character in the form of Phedre, and completely enchanted me with Imriel's tale (despite a rocky start in the likability polls). For the third series, she needed to shake things up a bit. Back to writing a woman? Great, she's had time to mature as a writer and bring it all together. Phedre and the others left in the annals of history? Excellent, removes the temptation to bring them into a story they would overwhelm. Resist the Mary-Sue temptation to make her a direct descendant? Eeeengh, not quite; although she's not directly related to the Delaunay clan, it's close enough to make me wonder if there's a draft out there with her as a great-great-granddaughter.

So Moirin's different enough to quiet the fans... or is she? In the first book Carey did a decent job giving Moirin her own life, but the moment sex entered the tale it all went down hill. Globe-trotting Moirin just can't help herself, hopping into bed with just about everyone in the first book, a trend that continued into the second. If anything Moirin's tales should be called "Eiseth's Travels", because damn if Moirin doesn't manage to come up with an excuse for every single liason. Half D'Angeline boy who's terrified of sex? A little coitus'll fix that right up. Woman with evil stone got Moirin's panties in a twist? The nearest queen will do. It got to the point where I started evaluating new characters as either "will do" "won't do" or "might do", and trust me when I say that's not a good sign.

As if her sexual escapades weren't mundane enough, throughout the book I discovered reference after reference to Phedre. "If only I were as good at languages as her", "but I can't possibly be diplomatic enough like she was"... Carey couldn't make up her mind whether or not she wanted to actually tell Moirin's story or convince herself she wasn't just copying Phedre as much as she could. It reminded me (and I shudder to think it) of Twilight, with Bella's insistence throughout that she's just not as cool, or beautiful, or elegant, or clever as the other girls.

While it was wonderful to return to the world of the D'Angelines and to do a little world exploring, Moirin is sadly trailing off into obscurity. While Carey may yet be able to salvage her as a character, I fear it is too late to rescue this damsel from her distressing fate.

Curse is a disappointing, but not unreadable, continuation of Carey's Moirin trilogy. The language is as rich and enjoyable as ever, and this alone is worth reading the book. The world building continues to be interesting, with an intriguingly familiar alternate world.

Unfortunately, the story itself was rather dismal.

Moirin began the series with so much promise that it's quite a disappointment to me. A child of the wild, innocent, ruled by passions and too honest for her own good, fighting for her independence...unfortunately, she has been thoroughly tamed beyond recognition. Forced plot contrivances, deus ex machina, flat characters and a complete inability to suspend growing disbelief plague the novel.

Similar to Kiss, Curse is divisible into two very distinct novellas following the initial introduction. Also like Kiss, these have very little - nearly nothing - to do with one another.

The plots themselves are fine, but it's the docile meandering of the characters through them that's painful to read. Kidnapped and held captive, Moirin does nothing to aid herself: never lifts a hand in defense or struggles to form a plan other than attempting to win over a rescuer, doesn't even really try to resist much, too cowed by threats. It seems like a pitiful low for a high spirited forest sprite to come to, and even after her escape (which mostly involved sitting around waiting, rather than fighting for survival) I felt a large part of her had died.

The second half was slightly better - Moirin at least seems to show some bravery - but the situations were so forced that it was hard to enjoy. I finished Kiss with a vague dislike for Bao, and annoyance at the lack of chemistry between them (it really would have been a better, more poignant novel if he'd stayed dead) but shortly after Curse began that switched into full fledged loathing as he proved himself an obtuse, uncaring, incompetent boob. Every claim to his strength of character and dedication is dismissed when he sinks into depression and drugs at the first hint of tragedy, and any potential to learn from it vanishes with his easy recovery.

The supporting cast are terrifyingly stereotypical and one dimensional. There's a clear line between the Good and Bad characters, with only one (the Spider Queen) edging towards a hint of grey. Many of the good characters - particularly the nice ones in the second half of the book - are so trite as to be painful.

Moirin herself seems completely changed. Despite her amazingly intriguing roots, it feels like Carey got bored or disheartened with her character and gave her up in preference of trying to resurrect Phedre, failing completely. Gone is the love of the wild - she does everything she can to avoid the out of doors and spend every night in an inn or palace - the innocence - she's become an expert haggler, intuitive conversationalist, and somehow seems to have even picked up knowledge of battle tactics - and most of all, the fiesty indomitability.

The deus ex machina is particularly hard to swallow. None of the characters seem to do much other than wait around for the gods to take care of things (I mean this literally; waiting cluelessly for a divine sign does not make for titillating reading). Moirin is constantly rescued from her own incompetence or lack of willpower: by a disheartened priest, a forgiving competitor, several handy guides and merchants, and an annoyingly saintly queen.

That said, there are some good moments and clever lines - such as when she asks if the yeshuite god needs her to save him. They just don't carry the book in the face of so many fundamental issues.

Ultimately, this is a continuation of a series and worth reading for that alone. It's a weak immitation of Phedre in Darsanga (without most of the horror, emotional crisis, or motivation) but if you've read Kushiels and finished Naamah's Kiss, there's really no reason not to continue with this one. However, lots of reason to hope Carey recovers the spark she seems to be losing.

First let me say I actually did enjoy this book. Overall, the story was interesting and entertaining. But when you break it up into its individual parts, it seems...well, pointless. The only driving theme seems to be Moirin chasing this guy around; the entire premise of the book just seemed weak. It started off strong, but the storyline degenerated the farther into the book we got.

I really enjoyed the Tatar parts; it was fascinating to see them in a different light than they had previously been painted. When she finally caught up with Bao, however, I was completly underwhelmed...not to mention the whole marriage thing was a disappointment. Not that he went and got married--somehow I didn't find that hard to believe at all, but his defense was based on his assumption that Moirin probably hadn't been celibate herself, (as if it was the same thing!) and he seemed more irritated that she would be hurt about it than sorry for the fact that he had hurt her. And the fact that she accepted it, and an "I love you" (finally!) made it all better marked, for me, the destruction of a character I could respect.

The part in Vralia had its interesting moments, and I did enjoy the contrasting interaction between D'Angeline and Vralian belief, but overall it felt pointless--especially the areas with Aleksei, although I did see what Ms. Carey was trying to do there, it just wasn't very interesting for me.

The last part, honestly, I could've done without entirely. Had there been a purpose in it other than Moirin running after Bao--again--it might have worked for me. The Spider Queen was intersting, but since she seemed thrown in only to make the obvious moral lession more obviously apparent, the entire storyline was a waste. I really feel the book wouldn't have missed anything without it and would probably have been much better, and by the end I got really tired of the heavy handed way the contrived moral conflicts were handled.

I agree with many other reviewers that the magic aspects are too overdone and far too much at the forefront; it doesn't feel in keeping with the tone of the overall series. And for heaven's sake, this is supposed to be a series about D'Angelines, at least in part; while the history lessons are interesting, quit traipsing us all over the world and get the story back to the people and land we fell in love with in the first place!

I am very sad to say this is my least favorite novel of Terre d'Ange so far. This is partly because of the theme Carey is exploring in this novel, but mostly because it simply does not measure up to the rest of the series.

Don't get me wrong -- I love this world with a deep and abiding passion, and I will buy the novels in hardcover the day they come out as long as Carey writes them. But this, the third trilogy set in the world of Terre d'Ange, is simply less powerful than the two trilogies that came before. It is less focused. The books are less focused than either Phedre's or Imriel's -- while the first six books in this series had definite beginnings, middles, and ends (that nonetheless contributed to the larger three-book story arc) both Naamah's Kiss and Naamah's Curse have minor endings that are clearly just pauses in the action rather than true endings to a book-long story arc; and Moirin herself is less focused -- she is seeking her destiny, but the only guideline she has is that she will cross many seas, so she just kind of wafts through the world waiting for her diadh-anam to flare up and let her know that this is a place she's supposed to be for a while. That passivity stands in stark contrast to Carey's best heroine, Phedre no Delaunay, who always had a sense of purpose and urgency to whatever she set her mind to. (Phedre also thought before embarking on any action, while Moirin just kind of jumps into bad situations and then goes "Ooops! I guess I shouldn't have done that.")

And the fact that I kept comparing the two protagonists to each other is symptomatic of the flaw in this book as well. They are both female first-person narrators in the same world, and Carey's skill is not so great that she gave them very distinctly different voices, so some comparison is natural. But in this book I have become convinced that Carey is deliberately comparing them to each other in her own mind, because so much of the action of this book echoes the action of Kushiel's Avatar, the third (and best) book featuring Phedre. Both books range into non-European lands (in Avatar it was Africa; here it is Asia); both books feature the protagonist's soul being made a battleground of the gods; the protagonist is tortured in both books as a part of that battle. (There are other parallels, but they would constitute spoilers for this book.) And at each point where there is this echo of the earlier heroine, Carey makes Moirin make the opposite choice.

Obviously, she did this to ensure that Moirin is NOT just a Phedre clone; but simply making Moirin the reverse of Phedre does not make a unique heroine -- being the anti-Phedre is no better than being Phedre-lite. She even gave Moirin an anti-Joscelin in Bao, and reversed the way their relationship worked -- in Kushiel's Justice Phedre drove Joscelin away, while here in Naamah's Curse Bao drives Moirin away through his actions and the difficulties they cause.

But the anti-Phedre trend continues even to the thematic level, and this is the point that I have to give the caveat: the theme Carey chooses to explore is well-executed, so I cannot say that the book is bad as a result of it; it simply is not to my taste, and so I disliked the book a bit as a result. In all the Phedre books there was an underlying theme of the gods' battles being worked out through their human followers -- Melisande is acting out her Kusheline nature in playing the game of Kings, and the battle between her and Phedre in the first two books emphasizes that the gods have created the battle and the battleground, and the humans are simply acting in accordance with their natures; the Mahrkagir, in the third book, is also acting as the avatar of a god, and Phedre is cast against him by her own gods. I loved this theme, because it allowed the human characters (even the villains) to be human, heroes of their own stories even as they are the villains in ours, while not at all lessening the visceral impact of the good vs. evil battle.

Here in Naamah's Curse, the theme itself is reversed. Instead of the humans acting in accordance with their gods, this novel is all about the ways humans can twist their gods to their own ends. The Khan of the Tatars, the Yesuite Rebbe, the Falconer and the Spider Queen -- all of them preach a twisted piety to serve their own human needs for power. And this made the book ugly to me. The battles between the gods had a certain purity to them, a sense of larger-than-life figures and motivations beyond our ken; the battles here are purely human ones despite all the talk of gods, and there is nothing pure about that. It is the darkest of the novels of Terre d'Ange to date, despite the fact that darker things happen in ALL of the other novels, and that made it hard for me to take it to my heart.

Still, anyone who has read the other novels has to read this one, and will have to read the next one as well to find out what Moirin's destiny finally is. And to show one way Carey has improved over time, this novel did at least have more humor than all the others combined, as well as the best one-liner ever, and one that echoes off the Phedre novels in all the right ways: "They say the gods use their chosen hard. Apparently, the gods are part of a vast conspiracy to share their chosen, too."

Well, so any Jacqueline Carey fan who read Naamah's Blessing was in for a couple hundred pages of dissappointment - shallow, unlikeable characters (including the heroine and her "love interest"), chinese stereotypes out of a 1960's kung fu movie, and contrived, predictable plot twists. In short, it seemed glaringly obvious that Carey - who proved herself capable of turning a brilliant story with Kushiel's Dart - had fallen prey to ravenous publishers, so eager to churn out another one of her books that they push her to complete a new installment and then send it to the printers apparently without reading the final result.

After Blessing, I had resolved never to buy another of Carey's books, but of course, having reread her earlier work just before the release of her newest, I couldn't help myself from picking up a discounted copy. Fortunately, Naamah's Curse is not quite the black hole of it's predecessor, leaving heartbroken fans with a faint glimmer of hope.

Don't get me wrong, the book still reads like Carey fan fiction instead of a master work - the "plot twists" announce themselves unceremoniously like crude or lazy immitations of her earlier work. Where we find ourselves gaping at revelations that should seemingly have been obvious to us the whole time in Kushiel's Dart, Naamah's Curse reveals the mechanisms behind it's creation, making obvious the author's hand where before the curtains were drawn tight. It's as though someone diagramed an earlier work of Carey's, figured out what types of characters were needed, when the plot should twist, and then, with all of a 10th grade education and experience, set about writing their first novel - or in the case of Curse, their second novel.

The upgrades in Curse, since the rest of my review must thus far have left you wondering what those could be, come largely in character development from the first book. Moirin, forced to endure several hardships that ring oh-so-eerily similar to things Carey's already contrived for her other characters (- Is it time for the main character to be sold into slavery in a distant land, yet?), nevertheless manages to grow up a bit (A hint for next time, Ms. Carey? No one likes a character who's main problems in life are that she's really pretty, the gods themselves guide her and give her life meaning, and she really likes having excruciatingly good sex with all of the gloriously powerful and attractive people that cross her path but she kind of has a boyfriend. The rest of us just can't relate.). Similarly, this book benefits from the separation of the happy love birds - Moirin spends most of the book trailing after Bao, which means that she's not with Bao, which means she's slightly less insufferable and we the reader are spared the rather more insufferable experience of watching them together (here's another clumsy attempt at a recreation of something that worked in the first book: Phedre and Jocelyn are an unlikely couple who, over the course of the book, gradually prove to themselves and the reader that they couldn't be more perfect for each other. Imriel and Sidonie, of course, do the same thing, but since the chemistry is there, we don't yet feel like we're being fed a formula. By the time we get to Bao and Moirin, the only thing that's clear about their relationship is that Carey [or her 15 year old ghostwriting fan] feels that the unlikely chemistry of the odd couple no longer needs to be proven.). We also get an additional one and a half royal mistresses - seemingly a particular schtick of this series - which only leads me to wonder why all of Carey's heroine's will sleep with women but in the end, only a man can satisfy them.

So what do we have in Curse? A generally pleasant travel narrative, taking us to more of history's greatest and most exotic lands. A respite from the dubious intrigue of Raphael de Mereliot (a plot-line which I, for one, do not particularly care to see resolved). An apparent detour which nevertheless finds us on a more pleasant path - as though Carey started writing because she had to churn out another book and in the process started to realize where she might actually like to go with it. Hampered by the contrived plot she's already cemented in place with the release of her first book in the series, the internal workings, the meat, of this second attempt are still truer than that of the first. Even though the climax of the book reads like she was trying to get it over with, I started to care more about Moirin in the day to day life she lives, to wonder whether there wasn't something to be learned from this flawed character who has a world view so different from my own. And herein lies the hope: because I start to feel less like I'm reading a first attempt at literature, and more like I'm reading a first draft. If Carey could go back and overhaul the first book, combining it with the second, cutting the endlessly shallow days in the court of Terre de'Ange (a place which has obviously decayed from noble decadence to the thoroughly debauched), if she could spend more time showing us Moirin as someone who is an exotically different person instead of an exotically two dimensional curiosity. If she could develope the chemistry between Bao and Moirin so that it makes sense, even just as the first, unformed stirrings of true love... But it is not to be for Moirin. Her path is chosen, and all we can do is follow her or not.

So if you're jonesing for a hit of Carey literature, or just the sort of person who wants to know what happens once they've read the first book, go ahead. For anyone else, Naamah's Curse is more like a mild invective. Skip it.

I guess this just wasn't quite as good as I hoped it would be. I was actually really bored by the end of this. I found myself sort of rolling my eyes at some of the dialogue. There were some characters that were just pure paragons of goodness, and it hurt my suspension of disbelief. I found myself pretty tired of Amrita by the end. I actually would've liked to see more of Valentina. I really feel her best books were the Imriel series. I still enjoy a lot of the concepts she gets across. She's just about the only fantasy writer I know who writes about non-monogamous relationships in a positive way, which I really appreciate. I enjoyed Naamah's Kiss a lot more because I really enjoyed the plots that went on in Terre D'Ange, and her portrayal of an unhealthy relationship, which you don't see a lot of in fantasy. It looks like the characters will be heading back there for the next book, so I'm hoping I'll enjoy that one a little more.

Jacqueline Carey knows how to write an interesting story. Naamah's Curse is no exception. It is a well-written romantic adventure story. That it is, but not more.
Those of us - I bet most who may be reading this review - who started with the Kushiel series and Phèdre nó Delaunay then Imriel de la Courcel as protagonists know that something is terribly wrong with the Naamah series. We miss depth of characterization, real emotional conflicts, the feeling of personal growth of the heroine.
So, for those of you, who read everything that went before, my suggestion is: Read it, because it is still a nice story. (But you can wait till the paperback is published.) For those, who by chance found this book without having read the previous seven in the series, my suggestion is: Go to Kushiel's Dart, read some of the reviews there and find out whether or not it is for you. If it is, then know that the Kushiel series is perhaps the finest of its kind.
Finally a plea to Ms. Carey (though I don't expect her to read this): Please, take your time with the next Terre D'Ange series and give us more than a nice adventure story. Impatient as all readers are, we can wait if it takes longer. Give us a book we can not only read, but also care for.

Although I remain rediculously grateful to Carey for continuing to write in the "Kushiel universe"...this is defini
tly a weaker book by far. The first of this trio started out quite promising...(as other reviewers have aptly described) but this one...pfft..hmmm..it felt like filler. I mean, now that they have proclaimed their love for one another it was like a floodgate of "I love you, I love you too! I love you.." I was actually rolling my eyes in parts. I gave it 3 starts becaue I'm just happy to be along for the ride, and (crossing fingers) hoping that the next book 'picks it up' with the suspense and political intrique and snappy diologue that I have come to love from these books...and maybe Bao will fall into the Bog of Eternal Stench or a Deep Dark pit and die and put an end to this (YAWN) rather dull pairing.

This book seems much more like a first novel than any of Jacqueline Carey's earlier books. First of all, the characters are stereotypes. The good guys are all saints and the bad guys are all devils. They're simplistic, and therefore neither believable nor particularly interesting. Second, the constant references to Moirin's destiny rob the book of much of its suspense. If we know that she will be going back home, confronting Raphael de Mereliot and taking a long ocean journey (or more than one), then we don't have to worry too much about the outcome of this book, now do we?

Most books have story arcs that are to some extent predictable, and so the events between predictable events have to be sufficiently compelling in themselves to hold the reader's interest, or we wind up skipping pages, or even stopping before the end. I skipped quite a few pages of Naamah's Curse. I'll read the next one, but this is no longer a series that I look forward to with much anticipation--more like mild curiosity. Too bad...